


rosalia

by catharsia



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Enjolras and Cosette Fauchelevent are Siblings, M/M, Model AU, Model!Enjolras, marius is fucking hopeless but we love him, photographer!grantaire, r is like 28 and enj is like 24?? entirely irrelevant to the plot, the title is a roman rose festival in case ur wondering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25265782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catharsia/pseuds/catharsia
Summary: ‘The models are here!’ Eponine calls.‘Oh, great,’ says Grantaire, with entirely unconvincing enthusiasm.He’s never worked with the Fauchelevent twins before. He’s been pretty happy with that state of affairs, for all that Enjolras and Cosette are the darlings of the modelling world. But Vanity Fair is doing a cover story on them and their blond, all-American, politically conscious, perfect lives, so Grantaire supposes he’s working with them now.---or: the modelling au where photographer grantaire is fully prepared to dislike model enjolras for some reason but then oh no he's really hot
Relationships: Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy/Éponine Thénardier, Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Grantaire & Marius Pontmercy
Comments: 6
Kudos: 116





	rosalia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grimmauld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimmauld/gifts).



The new photo assistant has knocked over the light diffuser.

 _Seriously?_ Grantaire thinks, but the poor guy – freckles almost obscured by the flush of red that’s swept over his face, hands and feet too big for his gangly limbs like a Labrador puppy – looks so distraught that Grantaire can’t bear to snap at him. Instead, he walks over to lift the diffuser up himself, at which the assistant looks at him like he’s Jesus reincarnated.

‘Hey, kid, what’s your name?’ Grantaire asks, entirely out of pity.

‘Marius!’ says the assistant, half-extending his hand like he’s not sure if they should shake. ‘Marius Pontmercy.’

‘Nice to meet you, Marius,’ says Grantaire, amused. ‘I’m Grantaire. Most people just call me R, though.’

‘Oh, I _know,_ ’ says Marius, a bright smile breaking out over his face. ‘I’m a huge fan of your work – the shoot you did for Bottega Veneta in _Vogue_ last season was inspired, really…’

‘Do you want to become a photographer, then?’ Grantaire sits on a metal stool perched just to the side of his set and leans forward, elbows balanced on his knees. Marius hovers for a moment before Grantaire beckons him to take the seat to his side.

It’s weird taking the time to chat right before a shoot, but the models aren’t here yet. They’re already ten minutes behind schedule. Grantaire’s late pretty much everywhere in his personal life, but he has enough courtesy to show up on time to photoshoots.

‘Well, I want to,’ Marius says. ‘I just don’t know if I’ll ever get there… I graduated three years ago and couldn’t get any jobs, so I went into retail for a bit, and this is only my third shoot with this job. I _really_ don’t want to mess it up, but things like that-‘ He gestures vaguely at the light diffuser, now upright, ‘- keep happening.’

‘They won’t fire you for walking into a light diffuser,’ Grantaire says, and as Marius’s eyes widen happily – ‘Really?’ – Grantaire can’t help feeling a renewed appreciation for his comparison of Marius to a Labrador.

Grantaire’s favourite producer, Eponine, chooses that moment to throw the studio door open. ‘The models are here!’ she calls, and Marius jumps up off his chair eagerly. (Whether it’s for Eponine or to greet the models, Grantaire isn’t sure.)

‘Oh, great,’ says Grantaire, with entirely unconvincing enthusiasm.

He’s never worked with the Fauchelevent twins before. He’s been pretty happy with that state of affairs, for all that Enjolras and Cosette are the darlings of the modelling world. But _Vanity Fair_ is doing a cover story on them and their blond, all-American, politically conscious, perfect lives, so Grantaire supposes he’s working with them now.

Eponine rolls her eyes as she reaches him. ‘I know you have some weird bone to pick with the Fauchelevents, but you’re going to play nice.’

‘I am nice!’ Grantaire protests, wounded. And professional. Very professional. He can put aside his personal feelings for anyone on a shoot.

‘Yeah, sure,’ Eponine murmurs, as Marius opens the door for the wardrobe assistants and stylists to swarm inside. ‘I don’t care what you do, but if you’re going to fuck Enjolras, wait until after the shoot, okay?’

‘What?’ says Grantaire, brain taking too long to catch up with that, and then the models walk into the room.

It’s not like Grantaire hasn’t seen attractive people before. Seeing attractive people is quite literally his day job. And it’s also not like Grantaire hasn’t seen photos of the Fauchelevents before, because their faces, pretty much permanent occupants of the biggest billboards in Times Square, are mostly ubiquitous these days.

He’s just a little taken aback at seeing them in person _._

Cosette enters first, draped in a glistening silver maxi dress, fringe dripping from her arms, some kind of enormous white faux fur creation that vaguely resembles meringue perched precariously on top of her head. She’s pretty, certainly. Grantaire is amused to note Marius, still sandwiched behind the door, appearing to trip over a little from a standing position as she comes further into the room.

Her brother is behind her, and, well, Grantaire is really fucked.

Enjolras is simply beautiful. It’s really kind of _unfair_ how beautiful Enjolras is. Grantaire forces himself to focus on his outfit: pants made of a stiff white canvas material, some kind of jacket-cape-thing made out of the same silver fringe as Cosette’s dress that – right, leaves his chest unfairly bared. It’s easier and probably less creepy to focus on those things than on the way Enjolras’s cheekbones curve upwards so sharply they seem almost prosthetic, or how inexplicably long and dark his eyelashes are in comparison to his golden hair, or the way his lower lip curls into a slight pout that lends his face an aristocratic, arrogant air. Grantaire can almost understand why he’s been dubbed _American royalty_ by the likes of TMZ.

He forces himself to look away, and unfortunately does so straight into Eponine’s face. Her lips are twisted into some bizarre mix of a smirk and a warning.

‘Are we ready to go?’ asks Joly, the production coordinator, coming up behind them, and Eponine nods sharply as the models walk up towards them.

‘Cosette, lovely to see you again!’ she says in a friendly, distinctly un-Eponine like voice, and Grantaire blinks as she leans in and hugs – _hugs_ – Cosette carefully around her outfit. Cosette beams at him over Eponine’s shoulder, and he smiles back. ‘Enjolras,’ she continues, nodding, which is more like the level of welcome Grantaire generally expects from her. ‘This is René Grantaire, our photographer today.’

‘It’s so nice to meet you,’ Cosette says, seeming genuinely delighted. Next to her, Enjolras nods and says quickly, ‘Likewise,’ and finally looks at Grantaire.

Their eyes catch, and Grantaire allows himself to hold Enjolras’s gaze for about three seconds, taking in the colour of his eyes (blue, blue, but picking up the silver of Cosette’s outfit enough that they’ve almost turned a layered grey) for as long as is socially acceptable before he looks away.

‘We’re behind schedule already,’ Eponine says.

‘Right,’ says Enjolras, all impersonal professional focus, and then _bites his lip,_ damn him. ‘Shall we start?’

\---

The shoot is a nightmare.

Grantaire is being positively victimised by the universe. Every angle he tries holds an intriguing complexity. Enjolras and Cosette are, aesthetically, a dream to photograph. Halfway through the first set of takes he leaves Marius to adjust the aperture, and Marius fucks it up but it’s somehow a happy accident, because it produces this dreamy half-focus that leaves Cosette and Enjolras’s outfits shimmering and spinning out over the camera like a pair of fracturing fairies. They switch onto three more backdrops and five more outfits with barely a technical hitch, and they easily make up for the time they lost at the beginning of the day.

‘Enjolras, can you tilt your head back a little more?’ Grantaire calls at one stage, because he just wants the lighting to sit slightly more dramatically, and then the pale exposed arch of Enjolras’s throat threatens to send him tripping over his own camera.

They break for lunch early because the shoot is going so smoothly. Cosette invites Marius over to sit at the edge of the studio with her and Eponine while they eat soup, and Grantaire is fairly sure Marius’s resulting smile could power a string of fairy lights. Eponine, sandwiched between him and Cosette, both of them nauseatingly wholesome people, looks _happy_ about it, and they quickly fall into conversation.

It’s this final weirdness that leaves Grantaire making a hasty escape out of the studio complex and down the road to get coffee.

‘R, good to see you,’ says Feuilly, the owner of Grantaire’s favourite small local café.

‘Same to you,’ Grantaire says, running a hand through (messy) hair. ‘Can I come hide in the back room for twenty minutes?’

It’s Grantaire’s favourite place to mope. The town where the studios are based is tiny, really, and he’s been coming here enough since starting out on photography seven years ago that he now counts Feuilly among one of his closest friends. The back room of _Le Café Musain_ is small and wood-furnished and warmly lit and a lovely place to forget about glamorous models and non-existent sexual frustration in the middle of a shoot.

‘Sure,’ says Feuilly, shooting him a slightly strange look. ‘But, R –‘

‘Can I get another cappuccino?’ a woman asks behind him.

Grantaire performs a series of contortionist moves to squeeze past Feuilly’s tables so he can get to the staff door. He’s relieved to slip inside and slam it shut, and stays there for a moment, breathing hard, listening to the knitted mass of voices seeping through the door from the main room.

‘Um, hello?’

Grantaire turns slowly to come face to face with the Apollo Belvedere. Or actually, Enjolras Fauchelevent. It’s probably a mistake a lot of people have made.

‘What are you doing here?’ Grantaire blurts out.

Apollo squints, a tiny scrunch appearing on his elegant nose. It’s definitely not cute. ‘Excuse me? What are _you_ doing here?’

 _Right,_ Grantaire realises, _that came out bitchily._ ‘I know the owner. He lets me come back here,’ he says, instead of apologising, because sometimes he’s an idiot who likes to play with fire, and the fire in Enjolras’s eyes is, for lack of a better word, entrancing.

‘Feuilly’s one of my best friends,’ says Enjolras, and it sounds like an accusation. ‘I prefer not to have to drink the shitty coffee at the studio, and when I come down here instead, he lets me hide back here.’

‘From all your fans?’ says Grantaire, definitely not because he has a instinctive feeling it will rile Enjolras up.

It does. Enjolras stands suddenly up from the wooden stool he’s been perched on, and there’s a faint blush creeping over his cheeks, which have been temporarily wiped clean of makeup. ‘Do you have a problem?’

Now that they’re both standing, it’s suddenly uncomfortably evident how small Feuilly’s back room is. Grantaire has stepped away from the door without noticing it, and suddenly there’s maybe half, a third of a metre between the two of them.

Models are tall.

‘No problem, sorry,’ Grantaire says, raising his hands, and its like he can _hear_ the tension in the room abate a little. Enjolras’s simmering anger seems to fall back beneath the surface; he’s less avenging angel and more of a regular one again. ‘I’m just an asshole and I need to get some coffee and I’ve been pissed off all morning because everything keeps going really fucking well on the photoshoot.’

Enjolras raises an eyebrow, lips held parted for a moment as he digests that, or something, before he says dryly, ‘Horrible how that happens.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Grantaire says seriously, and there’s something approximating a smile on the edge of Enjolras’s mouth. Maybe he’s an actual human.

‘Lucky Feuilly always gives me two,’ Enjolras says, sitting back down and gesturing at the sidetable, where two reusable coffee cups are indeed perched. ‘The green cup’s yours.’

It’s Americano, which isn’t quite Grantaire’s usual, but he can certainly work with it. ‘Not allowed your coffee white, I guess?’ he asks.

Enjolras grimaces. ‘God, no. No dairy, actually. I’d take soy if I weren’t working, but…’

‘Sounds fucking miserable,’ says Grantaire, and he wonders if Enjolras will be offended at that, but Enjolras just laughs – it’s a nice sound - and sips his own drink. ‘Cosette and I got used to it.’

‘She seemed to know our producer pretty well. Eponine?’

‘Apparently they met in Milan last spring.’ Enjolras says, and something sparks in his eyes that makes Grantaire think that they’re on the same page with what’s going on, here.

‘Mm,’ Grantaire says, non-committal, leaning back on his stool. He notices blue paint lodged under his nails, making his fingertips look vaguely anaemic. ‘Ep’s like my sister. Acts like a jackass but she’s sweet really.’

‘That runs in the family, then?’ enquires Enjolras, and Grantaire nearly spits out a mouthful of hot, watery espresso.

‘Probably, sorry. Does anything run in your family, aside from the ridiculously attractive supermodel gene?’

He lifts his eyes to meet Enjolras’s at that, deliberately flirtatious, and he’s pretty sure the pale sunset of pink which sinks onto Enjolras’s cheeks is a sign of _flattered_ rather than _annoyed and_ _can this guy fuck off,_ although he doesn’t want to push his luck. Someone like Enjolras being interested in someone like him is not something that generally happens on the human plane of consciousness.

‘Not exactly,’ Enjolras says. ‘You’ve met Cosette. She’s sweet. I have the world’s best documented arrest record.’

That’s true, Grantaire remembers. He makes a point of not reading tabloids, but Enjolras Fauchelevent’s reputation has transcended those pretty effectively. ‘Civil rights protests and climate activism, wasn’t it?’

‘What, do you not think that’s worthwhile?’ Enjolras’s chin lifts ever so slightly, challenging, and Grantaire can’t help but think _Apollo Belvedere_ again. He’s an artist. It’s not his fault. Okay, it definitely is, and he should stop looking at Enjolras like he’s a snack, damn it, that’s objectifying and creepy and probably makes Grantaire even more of a terrible person than he already was.

‘No, it definitely is,’ he says honestly. ‘Just – do you really think you can make a difference in the face of those issues? The world is so - fucked.’

‘If you don’t do something because you think it won’t make enough of an impact, you’re not helping an issue even slightly,’ Enjolras says flatly. ‘I have a platform, so I have even more of a duty to fight for change, don’t you think?’ He’s earnest, so very earnest that Grantaire thinks he could almost find himself persuaded. Almost. Grantaire is never going to be an idealist, but it’s a beautiful dream.

‘We have five minutes,’ Grantaire points out after a moment, glancing down at his watch. ‘You probably don’t want to be late to the studio _again._ ’

‘Fuck off,’ says Enjolras imperiously, but he’s smiling.

\---

‘I am in love,’ Marius whispers to Grantaire as Enjolras and Cosette are rushed off behind screens for their last costume change of the day. ‘Have you ever seen someone more beautiful? And at lunch – where did you go, actually?’

‘Got coffee,’ says Grantaire, leaning down to adjust the central tripod height. ‘And I’m very happy for you. Are you talking about Cosette or Eponine?’

‘Both of them,’ Marius says dreamily, without missing a beat.

 _They’re pretty, but I’ve seen Enjolras,_ Grantaire thinks, but keeps his lips pressed shut even if he can’t get the passion in Enjolras’s eyes out of his head. Enjolras is a _world-famous supermodel._ Grantaire is a fucking idiot. Grantaire has barely more dignity than Marius.

Marius gets called away to help the set designer lift a table.

‘You’ll be delighted to know Enjolras has emerged from getting changed and is now ogling your ass,’ says Eponine in Grantaire’s ear as she crouches down beside him. ‘Whatever happened when you two disappeared must have been good.’

‘You’re a fucking liar,’ says Grantaire, but turns around anyway to see Enjolras standing draped in some kind of gossamer-thin toga over tight red dress pants, watching them. He smiles at Grantaire, surprisingly open, and Grantaire smiles back. Like an idiot, again.

Over break the production team have moved the equipment through to the studio garden, a section of which has been transformed into some kind of neo-Grecian oasis of pale marble columns and red roses of a perfect shade with Enjolras’s trousers and lipstick. Yellow light is filtering down through the leaves around them, and it looks beautiful but it’s a technical bitch to capture.

Still, everything seems to be going right for Grantaire yet again. Marius does something bizarrely intelligent with the white balance that gives everything a rich, balmy golden tone, and Grantaire hates being overconfident but he’s pretty sure these exact photos will be gracing the cover of next month’s _Vanity Fair_. ‘Cosette, can you lean in a little more and look more to my left?’ he calls. ‘And Enjolras – look straight to the camera.’

Both of them do as he asks, and as their gazes lock Enjolras lids his eyes a little and pushes his lower lip out a tiny bit, and, really, whoever said he could wear red lipstick was creating a public hazard. Grantaire swallows, and as he peers through the viewfinder he thinks that Enjolras might be laughing at him just a little, his eyes alive as he curls his arm over Cosette’s shoulders.

The shoot wraps half an hour before schedule, which is practically unheard of.

‘Good job, everyone,’ Eponine calls. Grantaire is dismantling his tripod when her hand clamps down over his shoulder like a vice and she says, ‘Talk to him, goddamnit, I’m not dealing with you moping around for months after this if you just let him leave the country without saying anything.’

‘Sure,’ Grantaire says in her ear, feeling a little like they’re in middle school, ‘if _you_ talk to Cosette and Marius. Weird taste there, by the way.’

‘I’m going to punch you later,’ says Eponine affably.

Enjolras emerges from the racks of clothing ten minutes later dressed in tight black jeans and a loose, sleeveless blue top. This time he hasn’t removed any of his makeup, and there are smudges of blue-black liner and mascara over his eyes, and the red lipstick is still fucking intact.

Grantaire hates him.

‘Hey, there,’ he says, snapping the tripod shut as Enjolras heads straight over to him.

‘I enjoyed the shoot today,’ Enjolras says, posture perfectly upright. ‘And you’re less of an asshole than I thought.’

‘Likewise,’ says Grantaire, lips twitching despite himself. ‘I suppose you’re scheduled to return to Par _is_ now?’

‘Well, not quite,’ says Enjolras. ‘I have a couple more days hanging around here before I go back, to do the interview that goes with the shoot.’

‘Oh, of course,’ says Grantaire.

‘But, you know, it isn’t catwalk season. If I had a reason to hang around for a little longer –‘

‘Oh, please come on a date with me,’ Grantaire blurts out, and Enjolras’s teeth are blinding white when he smiles and says _yes._

**Author's Note:**

> this was SO dumb but i hope you enjoyed it!!
> 
> thank you to ez for beta'ing i love you so so much babe <3 also i gifted this to u bc why the fuck not have a present xx
> 
> follow me on tumblr @deanerys for my main or @rupikaurs for my writeblr!


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